Search canberratimes:

Search in:

Woden joins push for Olympic squash

David Polkinghorne

As part of a worldwide push for an Olympic Games berth, Woden Squash wants to start a men's and women's super league to start in Canberra in February.

That squash has been overlooked as an Olympic sport has long been a bone of contention among enthusiasts and there is currently a global movement to raise the profile of the sport and have it included at the Games in 2020.

And Woden Squash manager Sean Rogers wants to see a top-tier competition set up in the ACT to help make that happen.

The proposed super league would have Canberra's top six men and women play at Woden every Friday night, with the competition hitting off next year.

Advertisement

Rogers believes the standard would be similar to the Australian Squash Open in Canberra over the past few years.

''There's a big push on worldwide to get squash into the 2020 Olympics Games, so there's a big push to lift the profile of the sport and basically we're trying to do our bit for that and try and lift the profile and get more people participating,'' Rogers said.

''These guys and girls in the super league, some of these players have played at the world level.''

Rogers felt there was a need for Canberra's best players to be part of an elite competition.

Participation would be by invitation and admission would be free for spectators.

''What I'm proposing to do is up the ante a bit with this super league and making it a bit more fair dinkum, playing for money. It's a little bit more serious than what they're playing for at the moment,'' Rogers said.

''At the moment they're playing for a plastic trophy worth seven bucks.

''I'm upping the ante a bit to try and lift the profile of the game in Canberra, which probably hasn't been done for the last five or six years.''

Rogers said the idea was still in the early developmental stages, but was confident it would go ahead.